textproduct: Quad Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- A significant winter storm will continue across the area today through early Sunday morning, with widespread heavy accumulating snow. Winter Storm Warnings continue area-wide.

- Some very cold nights are expected early next week, especially Sunday and Monday nights, with low temperatures falling to the single digits.

- Another chance of snow moves in for Monday into Monday night, although new snow amounts appear likely to remain around a few inches or less.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH TONIGHT/

Issued at 258 AM CST Sat Nov 29 2025

Widespread accumulating snow continues across the area early this morning, thanks to an area of warm air advection and 850-700 mb layer FGEN that has developed on the nose of a southerly 30 to 40 knot low-level jet. As of 2 AM this morning, we've already had accumulation reports of up to 2 inches in some spots, especially north of Interstate 80. The prolonged period of accumulating snow will continue as a broad longwave upper trough continues to approach the region from the western Plains. An attendant surface low that has developed via lee cyclogenesis is currently situated over the OK Panhandle region, which is expected to lift east-northeastward with time per the GEFS and ECMWF ensemble low tracks over northern Missouri. Increasing moisture is expected ahead of the approaching low later today, with Pwats progged between 0.5 to 0.7 inches per the 29.00z HREF ensemble mean this afternoon, which is quite high for late November. Large-scale forcing will persist with the inverted surface trough expected to cross our region along with the passing low. The signal for snowfall amounts with this particular system still looks to be quite high, with nearly a 70-80% chance of at least a foot of snow (including what has already fallen as of this writing) per the NBM exceedance probabilities. The latest WSSI continues to show moderate to mostly major travel impacts from this snow, with moderate impacts across our far south where a wintry mix of rain and snow, or all rain for a time, is possible this afternoon as a thermal ridge builds northward. This wintry mix potential appears to be pretty fleeting, so any rain/snow mix or all rain that develops will quickly move off to the east by early this evening. With all of this said, we will continue the Winter Storm Warning headlines, keeping an ending time of 6 AM Sunday morning when the accumulating snow should come to an end.

Probably the most noteworthy change to the forecast has been to the wind forecast, which has shown an increasing trend over the last 24 hours. The gradient winds ahead of and behind the surface low appear to be decently strong, with gusts each period up to 35 mph. This will lead to the threat for blowing and drifting snow. There was some discussion if a blizzard headline was needed, but the wind magnitudes largely appear to be too marginal for one at this time (something we will keep an eye on). Winds today will be from the southeast before turning more northwesterly in the wake of the low tonight into Sunday morning.

With how high the forecast totals have been for this particular winter storm, we've looked back through the records for highest November single-day snowfall totals to see how close we are to these, and we will definitely be in the running for some, or all, of these records to be broken. See the Climate section below for these amounts.

LONG TERM /SUNDAY THROUGH FRIDAY/

Issued at 258 AM CST Sat Nov 29 2025

Accumulating snow will come to an end by Sunday. However, although the snow will be done, there will still be some 25 to 35 mph wind gusts possible Sunday morning, which would still support reduced visibilities from blowing snow, along with continued travel impacts on untreated roads and drifting snow. Something to be mindful of if you have Sunday AM travel plans!

We continue to see a trend for a much colder stretch for the early part of next week, thanks to 850 mb temperatures around 9 to 12 degrees C below zero per the GEFS and ECMWF ensembles through Tuesday. While these values aren't too impressive, they will be sufficiently cold to support overnight lows Sunday and Monday nights dipping into the single digits. These will be the coldest nights of the season so far, especially Sunday night, given a high pressure ridge axis will be moving over a fresh snowpack. We'll need to watch the Sunday night lows in particular as the NBM exceedance probabilities of lows below zero are around 50 to 70% over portions of northeastern Iowa, so we could also see our first below zero lows at that time.

Another possible system looks to quickly sweep through the area Monday through Monday night as a mid-level shortwave trough associated with a positively-tilted upper trough approaches the area. P-types should be all snow, but the duration of the snow looks much more limited compared to this weekend's system. This round of snow appears more moisture starved, too, but with decent forcing, this should result in a round of light accumulating snow. NBM probabilities of one inch are around 50 to 80% for most of the area (save for our northwestern areas), with probs of two inches around 30 to 60%, so decent probabilities for at least some shovelable snow, especially over our southeastern areas where these exceedance probabilities are their highest.

There could be another chance of snow late Wednesday, but there are some discrepancies among the models on the timing and coverage of this snow, so not much stock to put into this at this time. Outside of these two snow chances, the remainder of the week looks to be dry and colder than average.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z SUNDAY/

Issued at 1111 AM CST Sat Nov 29 2025

Winter storm will continue to impact the forecast area through much of the TAF period, with widespread IFR to LIFR conditions being seen due to moderate-heavy snow. Cigs are generally down to 1000-1500 ft currently, but are expected to drop into the 500-900 ft range. Vis will remain around 1/2-3/4 SM, with 1/4 SM in areas of heavier snow. The quarter mile vis will become more widespread this afternoon as heavy snow moves in. By 03z, we will start to see vis slowly start to improve, as snow starts to move out. From there, gusty northwest winds will kick in on the back end of the system, resulting in blowing snow. This may bring another period of reduced vis, lasting through the night. Confidence is lower on how strong the winds will get, resulting in lower confidence in spatial coverage and overall impacts on vis. Winds will be around 15-20 KTs sustained, with gusts upwards to 30 KTs. Will continue to monitor and adjust for the evening TAF forecast.

CLIMATE

Issued at 258 AM CST Sat Nov 29 2025

November 1-Day Snowfall Records (Date Set)

Dubuque, IA: 10.3" (11/25/1992) Moline, IL: 13.3" (11/25/2018) Cedar Rapids, IA: 9.0" (11/22/1893)

DVN WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

IA...Winter Storm Warning until 6 AM CST Sunday for IAZ040>042- 051>054-063>068-076>078-087>089-098-099. IL...Winter Storm Warning until 6 AM CST Sunday for ILZ001-002-007- 009-015>018-024>026-034-035. MO...Winter Storm Warning until 6 AM CST Sunday for MOZ009-010.